


Future Starts Slow

by Arien



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, Filming, Fluff, Spoilers, Wigs, the time of the doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arien/pseuds/Arien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Smillan fluff based around The Time of the Doctor, and spoilers for episode.</p>
<p>Silly fluff is silly and I'm not even sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Starts Slow

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is story purely fantasy - no disrespect is intended. I do not mean to suggest that anything in this story actually happened; or believe that the actors in question think or behave in any way depicted in this fiction.
> 
> Fiction is fun. >>

The moment Karen's back on set it's like she never left. Oh, there's been a few changes to the crew, but not enough that she's a stranger. Her natural warmth and charisma win her new friends, while she picks up from where she left off with the old.

Including Matt.

He has to be the one to usher her around. Matt's arm slips around her waist, drawing her deep into the set.

"And this is her! My new, sexy TARDIS! Hey! What d'ya think?" He brings her to the console. "See I can do things from here," he rattles a few levers, then spins to the new bank of switches set apart, "and then do a little thing _here._ I - oh, blimey..."

A part has come away in his hand. Matt gives a high, quiet titter, glancing around. Karen grabs his hands and guides them back to the socket and, giggling, they attempt to wedge it back in. It wobbles precariously.

"Me walls aren't usually so rubbish," he sniffs, turning grandly in an effort to take the heat off his latest act of vandalism. He crosses his arms and leans against the console. Matt is eying the countless drawings taped up over the walls. They depict Amy's adventures, colourful and bright. Karen goes to them, leafing some aside to see those underneath. Smiling.

"I love these," she muses. She taps the one illustrating a tendril of the star whale held aloft. The Doctor, Pond and a masked Liz 10 stand nearby. "Took weeks to get that stuff out from under my nails. Out of my hair."

"Wouldn't have that problem now."

"Ha, no." She touches her long wig self-consciously. They stuck it on good and tight - when Matt tugged at it earlier it refused to budge. "Bit liberating, shaving it off, hey?"

"Yeah. Yeah - for you more so than me, I'll bet. You've got a lot more of it."

"Had a lot more of it."

" _Have._ Still wearin' it, aren't you."

"Amy wouldn't shave her head."

"The Doctor did."

"Well, maybe. Or that's Moffat being a smartiepants."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

She taps another drawing with her long, painted nails. It's young Amy, Caitlin's Amy. "Fish fingers and custard."

"He eats that, you know. When he knows it's happening, the regeneration. Gets himself ready with one big, last bowl of fish fingers and custard."

"I bet the TARDIS has it waiting for him," says Karen, smoothing down the curling edges of paper. "Just like she had Amy ready. You wouldn't think it to look at Steven, but he's quite romantic, isn't he?"

"Karen."

His voice sounds strained even to his own ears. She looks over at once, framed against Amy's memory.

"I'm so glad you're here."

Softly: "Hey."

"Don't think I could do this without you. You were here when I started. It's just not right if you're not here at the end."

Karen abandons the set dressings. She comes to him dressed as Amy but everything in her eyes is Karen. No need to hide anything anymore. She comes slowly, resting her hands on his shoulders. Her touch unravels the coiled tension within him; his arms unfold, his hands rest upon her hips.

And she kisses him.

It's that simple now.

The rumours began in Season Five, and by Season Six they were an open secret. But it took until Karen's impending departure in Season Seven for them to get their act together. It's fitting that wardrobe's put Karen in that pineapple print dress of Amy's because it was then, filming in Almeria, that they finally stopped pretending this wasn't _it._

Theirs are slow kisses, loving kisses. No more hasty, stolen kisses between takes or fast fucks in cluttered storerooms because trailer axises squeak. 

"Look, can you not do this in costume?" Moffat asks, climbing on to set. He wears an expression he generally tends to employ when Matt and Karen are in the same room: a mixture of amusement and exasperation. "It messes with my head. Makes me think it's 2010 again."

"Come to see me out-act Smithers with just one line?"

"Wouldn't miss it. Only, please try to remember Amy's not _in_ love with the Doctor? Try to look at him with Amy's eyes?"

Karen turns to Matt. He raises his eyebrows and grins, teasing ready to roll off his tongue.

"Same goes for you, Matt. Four bloody years and I'm still saying the same bloody things!"

Karen, however, isn't about to let Moffat go without a barb of her own. "You haven't RSVP'd."

" _You_ haven't gone public."

"We will," Karen says, as Matt's fingers gently squeeze her hip, "after the engagement party."

Moffat turns to go and hesitates, as if some intangible thread restrains and holds him to the pair. Only words can break it. He gives them a curiously apologetic smile.

"I never meant to make anything difficult," he says, "for the two of you."

"Nah," Matt scrunched up his nose, "you made it fun."

"You two really are weird," Moffat shakes his head and at last untethered, unburdened, he gets out of the way.

Karen tries to remember what Moffat said about Amy's eyes when her shot is set up. But her eyes can't look at Matt any other way.

 

The shoot wraps after a single afternoon. Karen's angles were filmed first, then Matt's after a late lunch. When they wrap on Amy Pond for a second time a sense of relief overcomes Matt. He's a long way from filming his final scenes, but it feels like the hard part is over. There will be tears, but he's ready to go, now.

Karen lets herself into his trailer once they're out of wardrobe. And hair, literally out of hair. Matt reclines on his bed in jeans and a flimsy old t-shirt, his close-cropped hair getting an occasional rub from his palm. He knows it's Karen from the way she opens his door - she always uses just a little too much force, abusing the hinges. He glimpses a blur of gangly limbs and blue jeans as she launches herself at the bed. The springs lurch violently, almost throwing Matt right off.

"You bloody - crazy - !"

"Miss me?"

"No."

She grabs his face. They wrestle, legs over shoulders, squirming and breathlessly laughing until they're exhausted. Long ago they learned Matt is stronger and faster, but Karen knows all his weak spots and never gives up.

"You know what everyone who went by would've thought we were up to," Karen grins.

"Oh god, and it was over so fast!" He laughs loudly.

"Your reputation is in tatters."

"What if we go again?"

She turns her head toward him, breathing hard. "Wrestle?"

"That's not what I mean." Matt kisses her full on the lips, drawing his his fingers over the short, spiky ginger growth sprouting from her head.  "Coming back fast."

"Mm. Is."

"Still like it?"

"Nice not having to bother with my hair. You'd know. You always spent longer doing yours than me."

"Oh, shut your stupid face!"

Theirs is an easy familiarity. Even in the first, secret days, exploring one another seemed so natural, as if it had happened before. Another life, if such things were to be believed. Intuition and chemistry - she knew where he yearned to be kissed. He knew how she ached to be touched. His fingers, lazy yet intent, glide along her taut stomach from hip to hip. He's grinning at her, close enough to her face to be just out of focus.

"The axis," Karen reminds him.

"Fuck the axis," he replies so earnestly that they both laugh. He sees her point, however. Out in the open or not, there's no reason to make people uncomfortable with a rocking trailer in the middle of a busy lot. He sighs and settles himself between her legs, framing her face in his hands.

"You're a rotten sneak!" Karen cries when she feels his hard on against her thigh. 

Matt gives her a shit-eating grin. Now it's both their problem. "The Moff wants to take us out for drinks. Asking Jenna along too."

"What if we get spotted?"

"Kaz, it's Cardiff, who is gonna notice? You can come back and stay at mine after. Back to London tomorrow?"

"I think it's a good idea if I don't stick around. Don't wanna draw attention to myself."

"Or distract me."

"Or distract you, yeah. What time did he want to take us all out?"

"Not until like ... nine or something."

"So we've time to go to your place first."

An a-ha moment. "Oh! Yes ... my place _first_..!"

She leans up to kiss his scar. "Get off me, then. Idiot. Sneak me out."

"How d'you plan on doing that?"

"I dunno. Have a car brought round. I left my wig in wardrobe ... can you get it for me?"

"...do I get to try it on?"

"For the last time! No!"

He gets up, laughing, straightening his clothes. Looking down at Karen on the bed, he realises this is the last time he'll see her like this. In Cardiff, in his trailer, cloaked in secrecy. She seems to be thinking the same thing. She's biting her lip as she sits cross-legged, brushing phantom hair out of her eyes.

"It's been pretty good, yeah." She hesitates. "You won't get bored of me, will you? Now that it's not a game anymore."

"Get off it, Kaz. You're too much of a headcase for me to ever get bored."

The smile which softens her features promises him she is reassured. "Go get my wig."

"I'm trying it on!" He shouts on his way out.

"You'll make a rotten ginger!" She calls back. The door slams shut. "At least your eyebrows won't clash."


End file.
